Trainers

Nando Messias in the Gate Theatre’s, world premiere of Trainers, March 2020. Directed by Hester Chillingworth, design by Naomi Kuyck-Cohen and Josh Gadsby.

Nicki Hobday and Nando Messias in the Gate Theatre’s premiere of Trainers, March 2020, London.

Nicki Hobday and Nando Messias in the Gate Theatre’s premiere of Trainers, March 2020, London.

Workshop shot by Jennie Liu featuring Pilar Gallego and JC Zepeda (L, R).

S.O. speaks about Trainers in this mini-doc. Moving and still photography by Jennie Liu (2018).

or, the brutal unpleasant atmosphere of this most disagreeable season

Part essay and part play, my newest project Trainers follows a struggling writer who falls in with a group of depressed queer revolutionaries during a future civil war. Based on an essay by Montaigne and the story of his intellectual love affair with political thinker Etienne de la Boetie, the text explores what it takes to challenge the politics of one's time. 


History: Trainers has been developed at The Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep and at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. Collaborators Jess Barbagallo, D’Lo, Eric Hoff, Aubree Lynn, Mikaal Sulaiman, and Meiyin Wang have all contributed dramaturgically. Work has been supported by UCLA through a Faculty Career Development Award, a grant from the Council on Research, and from the Hellman Fellowship program. Research on queer zines was supported by a Rosati Fellowship from Duke University’s Rubinstein Library. A residency with Sundance/Ucross provided time to revise. The Gate Theatre, London produced the world premiere, directed by Hester Chillingworth.